This morning I read a supposed quote from Margaret Thatcher which asserted, “There is no such thing as society; there is only the market.”*

It is certainly true that people can find themselves both consumers and consumed in a finite game.

Consumers may want more and create a “healthy market,” but also lay themselves open to the needs of those supplying their consumption – who want to be bigger, produce more, and have more.  Those who want more need an audience or world to notice how big and successful they are, and in turn are vulnerable to the beliefs, feelings, and behaviours of the audience:

‘No one determines who an audience will be.  No
exercise of power can make a world.  A world must
be its own spontaneous source.  “A world worlds”
(Heidigger).  Who must be a world cannot be a world.”

Because the aim of a finite game is to win, markets focus on time amongst other things, and time appears to be in abundance at the beginning of a venture but in short supply towards the end – and that’s when mistakes are made.**
(Notice how your age can be very important in a finite game.)

The infinite player recognises both society and market as expressions of finite games, and whilst recognising that sometimes they will need to play in various finite games, infinite players aim to include as many as possible in an infinite or open-ended game (whether people are older or younger, it is someone’s contribution of art – through their experience and willingness – which is most important).  Two things then follow.  The audience become players (see how companies are now seeking to include customers in a story and produce what customers want), and, infinite players appear to have more time – and could be said to generate time because they are able to continue where others stop.

(*The quote most often comes up with the alternative ending: “There are individual men and women, and there are families.”  See Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational to see what happens when a societal transaction is turned into a market one.)
(**Perhaps politics are the ultimate finite game.  Peace talks over three to four days can struggle towards the end of negotiations as time slips away – for some reason a small number of people from a number of countries cannot be given by their nations to stay as long as necessary, instead being required to return home – apparently because they have something better to do there.  It just seemed strange to me when I wrote it down in this way.)

It’s difficult to know sometimes.

This is usually  question usually voiced or thought when we’ve said something or done something we shouldn’t have.

We’ve stepped out of place.

Yes, some people cause problems because of too high an opinion of themselves, however, there are many who struggle with having a high enough opinion of themselves.

The myth of Icarus* tells the story of the escape by a master craftsman and his son from the island of Crete.  Daedalus advised Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, but that’s exactly what Icarus did – full of hubris, the wings made of feathers waxed to a wooden frame fell apart and the son died in the sea.  But Daedalus also told his son not to fly too close to the waves, else the wings would clog and he would not be able to fly high enough.

Not too high and not too low = sweet spot.**

More people are got by the waves than by the sun.

Every day, I try and help someone to know more who they are so they can find their sweet spot and fly free.  It may sound like make-believe, like a story of gods, a tale of mythological proportions and not to be taken seriously, but the thing about myths and legends is they’re explorations of real life.  Dreams, then, are dangerous things when we audaciously and tenaciously pursue them, because they can make the world better, including more Human.

They begin in our imaginations only because they do not exist yet, but to imagine something is the first creation.

This is slow and patient work.  It requires that we journey to our centre, to find our genius, our art.

Your life wants to do something, to find its sweet spot of not too high and not to low; if you give it the right space it will get to it.  Every person is an artist, which isn’t to diminish art, but to elevate life.

Don’t let the waves get you.

You can begin by noticing the things which most energise you, over the next week – who are you with, what are you doing, why are you doing this, when are you doing this?  How can these things be turned into an open-ended game, developing into more and more?

(*Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception is a great look at people flying higher than they think they ought.)
(** This is different for everyone.  Your joy comes not from being like someone else but being like your future Self.  The distance from sun and waves isn’t a physical one, but one of being in the right place for the right reasons – you will flourish using the skills and passions you have in ways which keep pushing them farther.)

Here are a few more descriptions for prophets of hope.

Prophets are permission givers; because they’re doing something to “cross the border” and make a difference others can too. They see a bigger world than the one defined by borders – so they question and play with and sometimes reject the borders, whilst others are constrained by them.

Here are three major borders: between what we see and understand now and a bigger world which is invisible to us;  between knowing about something and experiencing it; and, between experiencing and actioning.  The prophet helps us cross each of these borders.

Prophets are living prototypes of an emerging future.  They haven’t got everything figured out; they are simply willing to give some tentative expression to what they’re seeing and hoping for and communicating.

Permission is more general and inspirational; a prototype is one possibility – it isn’t the way of living the future but  a way.  The more prototypes of the Human future the better.  As such, they’re not sealed off from their environment and the company of others in some personal certainty, but are increasingly open to and learning from as much as possible from every direction.

Prophets are connectors.*  Their lives are places in which otherwise disconnected artefacts, ideas, and people can come together,making it possible to redesign old worlds and design new ones.

Connectors are important because they challenge the prevalent ideas of disconnection which separate and adversify.**

Prophets see the repeated mistakes of the past and try out a new song: “Forget the former things, behold the new,” they sing with all their might, even if they’re sometimes off key or forget the words – then, hope isn’t perfect.

(*Sorry there isn’t a third “P”.)
(**I don’t know if this is a word but I’m thinking of how we make adversaries of people and organisations.)

Prophets imagine and describe possibilities others are unable to.

Living within the same reality as we do, they paint a picture of a different future – messengers from beyond the present, bringing to us things we do not know we need and seeing in us what we cannot see ourselves.

Perhaps they appear as questioners, dissenters, innovators, even competitors, but this comes from being energetic positivity when it comes to Human potential and what we are able to shape.  We don’t know what we are capable of yet.  My friend and mentor Alex McManus asks the teasing question, ‘What if the goal of the Universe is to produce a Human?’

Following a near fatal heart-attack, senior officer at Intel David Marsing, shares:

“In the hospital and during the months afterward, I
discovered that my true purpose was to help people
realise that they have more potential than they ever
imagined they had. … I wanted to create environments
for people that would help them see their true potential.”

Marsing decided to go back into the highly stressful environment which had contributed to his heart-attack, to help others find a healthier way of  working which he himself would practice, protecting colleagues from the stresses large organisations can produce.  What he became was a prophet of hope with a message from beyond (literally, as Marsing had clinically died in the emergency room before being revived).

This underlines what I suggested earlier, prophets of hope have faced the same things as everyone else and have seen a different possibility which they bring back for others.  This is the classic hero’s story.

I resonate with Marsing’s goal of wanting to create environments for people to realise their potential – a small part of what we are striving for as a Human species.  I do this, not because of a heart-attack, but many years of struggling in situations where the last thing anyone was helping with was identifying potential.  If you look at it from this way around, what is your discontent you must respond to?

This caught my attention because I see how I am trying to create all kinds of environments for this to happen, on my own and with others.  We are all capable of being prophets of a better future, providing environments within which people can thrive.

Be prophetable.

I’ve just sent a thank you to some people who’ve become a significant part of my life – part of my help from beyond.

Some of us first met three years ago – the result of meetups set up by Seth Godin as part of his Tribes initiative – whilst others have joined our conversations with purpose that began on the 31st May 2011.

As part of our journey, we’ve all taken steps and leaps forward in making ideas and dreams reality.  The commemoration, though, is not backwards but forwards, into the more of an emerging future as we understand ourselves to be Human Becomings more than Human Beings.

James Carse writes about how we touch one another in a reciprocal way.  It is the surprise for both which comes from a generous act.  I cannot move myself – that would be inauthentic, and I cannot force you or move you to something I have in in mind for you – the surprise is the result of act towards one another with one’s whole heart, (then we ‘ll be surprised by belief or change or action).

Yesterday, I wrote how three exercises enable us to see the emerging future more clearly; here are some questions tying in with how our help comes from beyond:*

Exercise one: Towards knowing who we are and what we can do: What are your talents (try listing ten and ten double this, and then add another ten)?; what are you passionate about (everything)?; What gives you energy?; What do you want to do something about?; What are your top five values and beliefs?; Then, what has time proven you’re not talented at (begin with ten again)?; What leaves you could (the things already in your life)?; What drains you of energy?; What have you tried to do something about but found you’ve not been energised by?

Exercise two: Towards seeing your resources: Who are the most important people in your life and what do they bring to you (e.g., are they a companion, do they open your thinking, do they help you through situations, or work with you)?; Picture your home and how you can use it (who could you invite around, what kind of meals could you share, what could you do with your garden if you have one)?; What are the artefacts you have and how can they help you to produce your art for others (books, computer, equipment, tools)?; What about your finances and/or what can you barter to make a difference or get hold of things you need)?; What’s in your fridge and how could you make something to share (and how)?

Exercise three: Towards habits of activity: Begin mixing the things you’ve listed in exercise one with those in exercise two, coming up with as many possibilities as you are able, no matter how ridiculous you think these are; Begin trying these ideas out, making a space or time or connection (especially the connections as  our help comes from beyond); if you experience failure you’ve learnt something valuable making it possible to try again in a different way.

In each of these I know my help comes from beyond – the complementary passions and talents of others, the questions and contributions others make into my life, and, the conversations with purpose which enable me to action something.

(*Writing these things down will have real benefit for deepening our reflection and creation.)

If you could do some exercises to improve your physical sight you’d do them, yes?

Whilst there aren’t exercises to sort out my short-sightedness, stigmatism and opacities, there are exercises to improve my ability to see the future

(It would be more accurate to say, seeing a future rather than the future – the future doesn’t exist but it can be shaped.)

I’ve been reminded how it’s possible to relive the past into our future in unimaginative ways: repeating what we or others have done before, yet Life invites us into a game of original play, a story of spontaneity and originality – James Carse reminds us, ‘Whoever must play cannot play.

When past successes and behaviours and hurts shape our future it isn’t playing, it’s being trapped within a “script” that has to be acted out – maybe to prove a point to ourselves and others (though in proving a point we’re agreeing with the very thing or person we’re trying to make a point against).

The alternative is to be the author of a openended story.

The reason we can see the future is because our imagination is lighting up with hopes and dreams and want to turn these into reality – when we want something together we have a movement.

Lighting up our imaginations and inviting us to play are three exercises:

Firstly, to know ourselves: what we can and cannot do, what we are energised by, how we are comfortable in relation to others.

Secondly, to know what we have, to regard and count all our resources – relationships and things – as employable for and in creativity.

Thirdly, to create ways and means of taking our passions and our resources into daily practices and habits of making something – whether an artefact, a relationship, a journey, or a community.

When these three things are happening in our lives, we can be astonished by the number of possibilities for the future we see – even to the point of having to choose which we have to pursue and which we must put away.

You may recognise these as our purposeful companions: Humility, Gratitude, and Faithfulness, helping us to avoid the lose blindness which hubris, greed and foolishness can afflict us with.  Instead of enacting the past, we are able to live towards the future with creative originality.

I’ve no idea what this might exactly mean for you, but I’m sure you’ll wow me with what you come up with.

Your voice (Latin vox) is unique.

If you understand this to mean different then it’s possible for you to reach the end of your life and not done anything with it.

If you understand it to be about making a difference then you’ll produce your art of disequilibrium,* craft a story of giftedness and invitation and connection.

Brenè Brown says it right when she admits:

“It’s so scary to show up.  It feels dangerous to be seen,
it’s terrifying.  But it is not as scary, dangerous, or terrifying
as getting to the end of our lives and thinking – what if I
would have shown up?  What would have been different?”

Today is VOXday in Edinburgh.  A community of people will be turning up with their art and giving it away in amazing ways so they might make a difference in the lives of people they’ll never meet: “finding our voices so others may find theirs.”  Just one example of what’s happening in all kinds of places; people finding their voices and making a difference.

What’s your voice?

Happy VOXday!

(*When we produce our art because of our passion and love, it’s worth more than anyone can give us or pay us for it.)

Seeing is different to looking.

I was explaining this to someone earlier.  I looked at a pair of curtains in the room and suggested they could be used to draw across the window, offering warmth and privacy.  But to see the curtains meant I saw the material, the colour, the size, and what the curtains could become – clothing (Maria managed this in The Sound of Music*), art, blankets, dust-sheets, up-cycling into ?  To look at something is to see it within boundaries, to see something or someone is to see open-ended possibility.

Our lives can be more about looking than seeing.

I’ve been exploring how an inciting incident can tear us from a familiar reality into a new one, even from a life of looking to one of seeing.  And we can be surprised at what we find, how connected we find ourselves to be.

There’s more to you than old certainty suggested.  There’s something only you can bring into this world, emerging from your way of seeing, which I need to see too.  Deep observation allows you to be more deeply present to people and the world – it is as though you observe from within these.  Now the art you produce comes from the emerging future.

When you realise what it is you must do, you help me to understand what I must do.

To realise what you have to bring to into the world you must give it away, as James Carse suggests: ‘You can have what you have only by releasing it to others.’

(*You’ve got to love Hollywood.  I’ve been on The Sound of Music tour with a cynical Austrian guide telling us the true story.)

It’s the classic story, told throughout Human history: the protagonist finds him or herself ousted from a familiar world and into a new reality by some inciting incident.  They must stop trying to return to what was (and has gone forever) in order to emerge.

This is about reality and grief and hope, and some Human genius.  Grief must not be avoided because it helps us let go and then to take hold.

Otto Scharmer tells of a personal and unexpected experience when he looked on the smouldering remains of the three hundred and fifty year old farmhouse his family’s generations had lived in for two hundred years:

‘I suddenly felt released and free to encounter the other
part of my self, the part that drew me into the future –
and into a world that I might bring into reality in my life.’

Moments like these are thin|silences within which our worlds change.  Joseph Jaworski describes this well: ‘In that special silence, you can hear or see, or get a strong sense of something that wants to happen that you wouldn’t be aware of otherwise.’*

We can find our future Self in unexpected places and occurrences.  What if I were to admit to not being very good at the role I’ve been in for some thirty years.  This would certainly be a hard reality I’d need to grieve over, but I also find myself free, as Scharmer puts it, to encounter the other part of my Self which calls me into the future .  And maybe if I try and deny this reality I might miss what James Carse identifies as the ‘genius of myself’ (with which we can originate something right and good and beautiful into this world).  This Self only exists with the acknowledgement of this genius in others.

Then, to face reality and grieve what cannot be, or never was, or cannot be again, is so important, turning ousting into opportunity, perhaps uncovering  the other part of who we are, our genius expressed in a courageous and generous life.**

Please feel free to use this post as an inciting incident.

(*Joseph Jaworski’s description isn’t the original source for the idea of  thin|silence, but he captures the very dynamic of an emerging future which we had not foreseen.)
(**Both courage and generosity are expressions of selflessness.)

Are those who play with the rules rather than play by the rules.

Whilst many try and tell us this or that group of people are important, dangerous people tell us everyone is important.

And when some are telling us about how important this task is and how we need a decision yesterday, dangerous people are looking to see how it contributes a better future.

Whilst many are just serious, dangerous people seriously use fun, imagination, and disruption in order to live expansively.

The powers-that-be have to be control or employ by them, and if they can’t, they must marginalise them.

The infinite artist is a dangerous person because they have become generative beings, able to contribute far more than one person seriously should, and when they form a tribe … !

Vincent van Gogh believed artists living and working together would create a religion or spirituality for the future – ‘a miniature monastic community dedicated to producing the art of the future’; he was to produce some of his most amazing work in anticipation of Paul Gaugain’s arrival in Arles and the Yellow House.

I use artist in a wider sense to mean the creative contribution every Human is capable of, but perhaps we can extract something more from the life of Van Gogh: although he never sold a painting in his lifetime, his artistry continued in a prolific way which shocked others – it resided in the artist primarily and found expression in his paintings.  So an infinite artist isn’t her or his work – whilst a “work” is imbued with their passion and skill, the infinite artist is above all a generative being.

They know who they are and what they can do (an expression of their connectedness – to others and to the world); they also know what they have, they are not blind to their resources, which are substantial.  As a result, they are able to go further, and produce and contribute more.

Infinite artists or players know there is no limit or scarcity to the things which matter most: love, hope, and imagination.

And we are all invited to be infinite artists.